Saturday, April 13, 2013

Garcon

Couple days ago, I was meeting up with my bestie for a late lunch. Initially, we were planning to go to the new recently open, Salt Grill, but the place were closed for private function that day, so our second option went to Garcon. Garcon (read: Gar-son, means waiter in French) is the newest addition in the fine restaurants complex of Plaza Senayan's 4th floor, serving a semi French fine dine with full of temptations cakes' display welcoming us as we entered the bistro.

The place was okay, with the bar behind cakes display taken quite a space on the whole room, the bistro felt a bit narrow, in a classy way. The menu was limited with quite expensive price tags, the appetizers and desserts starts below 100k, but almost all their mains ranged at 150 - 350k. I forgot to take note and lost the bills, so pardon if any misstatement on the names & price. We chose Escargots (50k+ something, I think) for the appetizers, It was buttery fried with herbs and plenty of cheese, not my favorite but bestie liked it. Our main course, Crispy skin sea bass with blanc sauce and mashed potatoes (230k) and Roasted chicken glazed vegetables in rosemary juice (90k) both were pretty ordinary.

The sea bass came in beautiful presentation which personally to me, ruined by some kind of froth foam under the mashed potatoes. I'm not sure whether they were being scientific with all the molecular gastronomy kind of thing and I was too artless to appreciate, all I know I didn't like it, It looked like saliva to me, and totally ruined my appetite. For a 230k, the sea bass wasn't even worth it. It wasn't bad, the fish was smooth and tender, but we can felt a bit of the fishy smell. The roasted chicken was much better than the sea bass, though it was not great, but it was pretty okay, the chicken was super tender. If only they add more seasoning into it, it would be so much better. Will it be too ironic if I say that the one I enjoyed the most was the complimentary free of charge bread? It was a great tasting bread. I even chose to not finished my chicken to ensure a space for the breads.

We were a bit hesitant on whether having a dessert or not. Either it could be the rescue food or adding more trauma into our first Garcon time. Luckily, no more trauma. The waiter, the garcon... suggested their in house favorite cakes, I can't remember the name, it was a chocolate hazelnut kind of dessert priced at 35k, and it was heavenly delicious! I'm always in doubt on picking chocolate based cake, as most of them mostly only looked delicious from the outside, but this one... trust me, delicious delicious delicious! The chocolate was so smooth, with hazelnut melted cream inside the pie crust, together they make a hell of a team. It was really really good.

My first lunching experience at Garcon left me an impression that the place suited more for socialites' monthly gathering (read: arisan), or any kind of gathering where people care more on meeting up with friends rather than having a great food experience. As for me, I don't mind coming back for more desserts, but not on their heavier meal.